A few days ago, conservative columnist Debra Saunders speculated that as many as 600,000 Californians might lose their individual insurance policies under Obamacare. Some dismissed her calculations as fevered partisan projections. In fact, the numbers are 50% worse. According to Peter Lee, executive director of the state’s Obamacare exchange, up to 900,000 could lose their policies–not including small business employees.

Lee told the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that Covered California would pick up many of those customers–but acknowledged that some of them would be paying more for health insurance than they had previously. He also acknowledged that President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep insurance they liked “was not well stated” and “may have been an inarticulate way of describing what the realities are.”